If you want to incorporate home automation in your home , you should think carefully about what type of technology to use to connect the different devices to the local network. There are manufacturers that bet everything on Wi-Fi connectivity in 2.4GHz that we all know, however, there are other manufacturers that bet on wireless communication technologies that are oriented to home automation, such as ZigBee . Which one should you choose for devices to communicate wirelessly? Today in this article we are going to explain the strengths and weaknesses of each solution.
Wi-Fi connection
We all use WiFi connectivity in our home to connect different devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and also the devices that are part of home automation and video surveillance in our home. Some devices that we usually connect by WiFi and that are part of home automation are smart plugs, which allow us to turn on and off different appliances locally and remotely, we also have IP cameras that all connect by WiFi or cable, to being able to see in real time everything that is happening at home.
Other devices that we can also connect via WiFi are motion detectors, window and door opening detectors, flood sensors in case we have water leaks, gas leak sensors, WiFi relays to easily control electrical circuits, and many more devices. , such as those used to control the air conditioning or heating in our home.
Using the WiFi connection for the different home automation devices has its strengths :
- They all connect directly to the router, WiFi access point or WiFi Mesh system, either on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band. We are not going to need any kind of “hub” to connect them to the local network.
- If we have a good Wi-Fi wireless network, all these devices will have a very good wireless signal in all of them, making the latency very low and the actions to be carried out very quickly.
However, using WiFi to connect dozens of home automation devices also has its weak points , below, we explain the most notable ones:
- WiFi is shared with other wireless clients connecting to the network on 2.4GHz or 5GHz, so we may experience high latency at times due to it being in use.
- There is WiFi interference with our neighbors , especially if we use 2.4GHz to connect the different devices.
- The more devices are connected, the slower we will have on the network.
- High energy consumption, which could cause the autonomy of battery-powered devices to be low .
Now that you know the strengths and weaknesses, let’s see what features we have in ZigBee.
ZigBee: is it the best for home automation?
ZigBee is a wireless communication protocol that is specifically designed to provide the best performance and lowest latency in home automation devices . In addition, a very important detail is that it is designed for communications that need to be secure, have a low data rate, and are low in consumption. So on paper, ZigBee is perfect for home automation.
The strengths of using ZigBee for home automation are the following:
- Protocol designed for home automation and highly optimized.
- Low power consumption , ideal for devices with batteries.
- Mesh topology of the entire network, so that all devices are connected to each other. Star or tree topology can also be used.
However, in ZigBee not everything is perfect, and we must take into account certain negative things, such as the different types of ZigBee devices that exist:
- We need a ” coordinator ” which is the most complete type of device, and there must be one per network. It is responsible for controlling the network and the paths that devices must follow to connect to each other. We also need a « ZigBee router » that is responsible for interconnecting separate devices in the network topology.
- If the coordinator and router device becomes unavailable for any reason, the entire ZigBee network goes down and is left without communication.
As you can see, in ZigBee we depend on a kind of “hub” to interconnect the different devices with each other and with the local network, if this device is not available, no device on the network will be.
ZigBee’s strengths outweigh the negatives. If you are going to set up home automation at home, you should consider the possibility of installing ZigBee instead of WiFi, however, if you have a well-sized WiFi network, it will also work very well for you.